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9 


Nicaragua  or  Panama 


The  Substance  of  a  Series  of  Conferences  made 

before  the  Commercial  Club  of  Cincinnati 
before  the  Engineers'  Club  of  Cincinnati 
before  the  Commercial  Club  of  Boston 
under  the  Auspices  of  the  National  Business 

League  in  Chicago 
before  the  Princeton  University  in  New  Jersey 
etc.,  etc. 

and  of  a  formal  address  to  the 

CHAMBER  OF  COMMERCE  OF  THE  STATE 
OF  NEW  YORK 


By 


Philippe   Bunau-Varilla 

Former  Engineer-in-Chief  of  the  Panama  Canal  ;  Director  of  the  Congo  Railway 

President  of  the  Madrid,  Caceres,  Portugal,  and  West 

of  Spain  Railways 


Nicaragua  or  Panama 


The  Substance  of  a  Series  of  Conferences  made 

before  the  Commercial  Club  of  Cincinnati 
before  the  Engineers'  Club  of  Cincinnati 
before  the  Commercial  Club  of  Boston 
under   the  Auspices  of  the  National  Business 

League  in  Chicago 
before  the  Princeton  University  in  New  Jersey 
etc.,  etc. 

and  of  a  formal  address  to  the 

CHAMBER  OF  COMMERCE  OF  THE  STATE 
OF  NEW  YORK 


By 


Philippe   Bunau-Varilla 

Former  Engineer-in-Chief  of  the  Panama  Canal  ;  Director  of  the  Congo  Railway 

President  of  the  Madrid,  Caceres,  Portugal,  and  West 

of  Spain  Railways 


Gi-i^S) 


Zbe  IknicfierbocNer  press 

mew  iSorh 

tSOl 


SRLF 
URL 

113 


I  firmly  believe  that  when  the  Truth  is  advancing 
nothing  can  stop  it ;  I  firmly  believe  that  its  irresist- 
ible pressure  will  overthrow  any  dam  of  prejudice 
erected  In  order  to  hold  it  back. 

At  the  same  time  I  think  that  individual  efforts 
may  largely  help  the  Truth  in  its  progress,  by  clearing 
from  its  path  the  obstructions  of  ignorance. 

This  was  my  aim  when  I  answered  affirmatively  to 
three  American  friends  who  invited  me  to  come  to 
this  country  of  free  discussion  in  order  to  say  publicly 
what  they  had  heard  in  private  conversation  with  me 
in  Paris. 

I  am  not  here  as  the  representative  of  any  private 
interest ;  I  came  to  defend  a  grand  and  noble  concep- 
tion which  gave  me  several  happy  years  of  struggle 
and  danger,  and  for  which  I  suffered  many  years  of 
anxiety,  during  which  I  do  not  remember  one  hour 
of  despair. 

It  has  been  to  me  a  great  privilege  to  have  the 
opportunity  of  exposing  to  the  clear  light  of  day  all 
the  irrefutable  facts  which  show  that  Providence  has 
subjected  to  a  severe  test  the  sagacity  of  man,  by 
giving  apparently  to  the  Isthmus  of  Nicaragua  all 
good  qualities,  and  to  the  Isthmus  of  Panama  all 
defects  for  an  interoceanic  waterway,  when  in  reality 
it  has  given  to  the  latter  and  refused  to  the  former 
all  the  attributes  necessary  for  the  establishment  of 
this  natural  highway  of  nations. 

3 


I  have  been  happy  to  speak  in  this  great  country, 
where  the  first  official  word  of  justice  for  Panama  has 
come  from  the  eminent  Isthmian  Canal  Commission. 

My  purpose  has  been  attained.  I  have  worked  for 
the  scientific  Truth  on  one  of  those  fields,  where,  as 
Mr.  Carnegie  recently  and  justly  said,  there  is  no 
room  for  selfish  and  private  aims. 

Philippe  Bunau-Varilla. 
New  York,  March  15,  1901. 


Gentlemen: — It  will  be  my  effort  to  lay  before  you 
a  series  of  facts  officially  or  scientifically  established 
and  to  show  at  their  clear  light  the  real  aspect  of  this 
question  of  paramount  importance. 

Those  facts,  drawn  from  absolutely  reliable  sources, 
will  help  to  pierce  the  dense  mist  of  prejudice  and 
erroneous  impressions  that  floats  over  public  opinion, 
which  was  misled  both  by  the  deceitful  appearance 
of  the  natural  conditions  of  the  two  canal  routes  of 
Nicaragua  and  Panama,  and  at  the  same  time  by  the 
false  idea  that  the  Panama  enterprise  was  paralyzed 
by  technical  impossibilities,  when,  on  the  contrary,  the 
financial  difficulties  were  the  only  cause  of  such  par- 
alysis, and  came  when,  after  a  long  struggle,  all  tech- 
nical problems  had  been  entirely  solved. 

It  would  have  been  a  short  time  ago  impossible  to 
make  the  same  demonstrations  with  the  same  authori- 
tative statements  because,  though  the  facts  that  I 
could  have  brought  had  been  the  same,  I  would  have 
been  obliged  to  place  them  under  the  authority  of  the 
books  that  I  published  nine  years  ago,  and  I  would 
have  hesitated  to  ask  from  you  so  much  credit  for 
them. 

To-day  the  situation  is  changed  ;  an  official  commis- 
sion formed  of  the  most  prominent  engineers  of  this 
great  country,  so  rich  in  eminent  engineers,  has  thor- 
oughly studied  the  question,  and  though  they  have 

5 


presented  but  a  preliminary  report,  which  did  not  em- 
brace all  the  points  of  this  complicated  question, 
nevertheless  the  facts  already  definitively  settled  by 
this  hig-h  court  of  technical  skill  are  so  numerous  and 
so  precisely  stated  that  a  stable  and  permanent  basis  is 
at  last  offered  for  a  clear,  open,  and  loyal  examination 
of  the  question. 

In  order  to  avoid  any  confusion  about  the  au- 
thority of  the  statements  that  I  am  going  to  make 
before  you  I  shall  divide  my  speech  into  two  distinct 
parts,  which  correspond  to  two  natural  divisions,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  subject  examined  and  from 
that  of  the  authorities  which  cover  the  statements. 

I  am  going  first  to  submit  to  comparative  examina- 
tion all  the  points  that  characterize  the  routes  of  the 
Nicaragua  and  Panama  from  the  point  of  view  of  con- 
struction or  operation. 

For  the  first  part  I  shall  not  give  any  figures  that 
are  not  extracted  from  the  two  American  official  re- 
ports on  the  subject,  namely  :  The  preliminary  report 
of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission  of  November 
30,  1900,  and  the  report  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal 
Commission,  1 897-1 899. 

Onlv  some  fiorures  referring-  to  the  curves  of  the 
Panama  Canal,  and  which  are  not  to  be  found  in  said 
reports,  will  be  extracted  from  the  report  of  the 
Comite  Technique  of  the  Compagnie  Nouvelle  de 
Panama,  made  under  the  authority  of  first-rank  engi- 
rieers  of  America,  England,  Germany,  and  France  ; 
also  some  figures  about  the  Chagres  floods  will  be 
extracted  from  public  documents  of  said  Compagnie. 

In  the  second  part  the  facts  that  I  shall  state  in  re- 
lation to  the  stability  of  the  construction  are  not 
given    under   the  authority  of   the    Isthmian  Canal 

6 


Commission,  who  did  not  speak  of  that  part  of  the 
subject  in  the  preHminary  report,  and  some  facts  only 
will  be  extracted  from  the  report  of  the  Nicaragua 
Canal  Commission. 

Before  going  into  the  discussion  let  us  first  have  a 
look  at  the  external  appearance  of  the  two  routes. 

Apparent  Relative  Value  of  Nicaragua  and  of 
Panama  Routes. 

The  Nicaragua  Lake  is  separated  from  the  Pacific 
by  a  narrow  Isthmus  of  17  miles  in  width  whose 
divide  is  very  low  (44  feet  above  the  lake),  while  the 
Panama  Isthmus  is  45  miles  wide,  and  its  continental 
divide  330  feet  above  the  sea.  This  exterior  aspect 
is,  I  think,  responsible  for  the  false  ideas  formed  in 
public  opinion  about  the  easiness  of  the  Nicaragua 
Canal  construction,  because  one  is  led  to  foreet  that 
the  real  and  immense  difficulties  are  not  on  the  west- 
ern side  of  the  lake,  but  on  the  eastern  side,  in  the 
valley  of  the  San  Juan  (120  miles  long),  which  a 
superficial  examination  leads  one  to  consider  as  a 
natural  waterway  between  the  lake  and  the  Atlantic, 
which  it  is  far  from  being  in  reality. 

Owing  to  that  erroneous  impression  people  gen- 
erally believe  that  only  a  very  short  canal  navigation 
will  be  met  on  the  Nicaragua  Isthmus,  and  that  dur- 
ing nearly  all  the  time  of  transit  from  ocean  to  ocean, 
ships  will  float  in  free  deep  water. 

PART    I 

Respective  Lengths  of  Canal  Navigation. — 
There  is  an  evident  impossibility  of  utilizing  the 
lower  half  of  the  San  Juan  for  canal  navigation,  on 

7 


account  of  the  immense  amount  of  sand  brought  into 
it  by  torrential  and  powerful  tributaries  coming  from 
the  volcanoes  of  Costa  Rica. 

Mr.  Menocal,  thouQ^h  abandoning^  the  lower  San 
Juan,  hoped  to  replace  that  part  of  the  river  by  two 
artificial  lakes,  formed  by  damming  two  northern 
tributaries  of  the  lower  San  Juan,  the  San  Francisco 
and  the  Deseado. 

He  further  projected,  in  the  Isthmus  of  Rivas,  a 
third  artificial  lake  between  the  Nicaragua  Lake  and 
the  Pacific. 

Those  three  lakes,  as  well  as  the  San  Juan  River, 
between  the  Lake  Nicaragua  and  the  Ochoa  dam, 
had  to  be  kept  at  the  same  level  as  the  lake  itself. 
This  route  seemed  to  transform  into  reality  the  ad- 
vantage which  the  Nicaragua  route  appears  to  have, 
namely,  a  short  canal  navigation,  combined  with  the 
long  free  navigation  in  deep  water. 

This  is  how  it  was  often  asserted  that  under  that 
plan,  if  not  exactly  17  miles  canal  navigation,  at  least 
not  more  than  28  miles  had  to  be  expected  between 
the  oceans. 

I  showed  in  1892  that  this  figure  was  much  too  low, 
and  that  85  miles  of  canal  navigation  had  to  be  met, 
if  one  takes  into  account  all  parts  of  the  way,  where 
ships  have  to  navigate  in  a  channel  dug  either  in  open 
land,  or  below  the  bed  of  a  river,  or  below  the  bottom 
of  a  lake. 

I  pointed  out  also  to  what  extraordinary  difficulties 
such  an  extraordinary  amount  of  damming  would 
lead,  and  the  danger  of  receiving  above  the  Ochoa 
dam  such  tributaries  as  the  San  Carlos,  with  its  enor- 
mous amount  of  sand. 

The  Isthmian  Canal  Commission,  and  before  them 


the  Nicaragua  Canal  Commission,  rejected  the  Meno- 
cal  plan  as  impossible,  and  thought  that  the  first  place 
admissible  for  the  location  of  a  dam  was  above  the 
mouth  of  the  San  Carlos. 

According  to  figures  given  by  the  Isthmian  Canal 
Commission,  the  total  length  of  canal  navigation, 
under  the  plans  they  adopted,  will  be  120.53  miles,  to 
which  are  to  be  added  66  miles  that  will  be  made  in 
free  deep  water,  either  in  river  or  in  lake,  making  a 
total  of  186.53  niiles  from  ocean  to  ocean. 

Of  that  total  length  of  120.53  miles  of  canal  navi- 
gation, 22.19  rniles  will  belong  to  an  artificial  channel 
dug  below  the  bottom  of  Nicaragua  Lake,  and  27.96 
miles  to  an  artificial  channel  dug  through  sand  and 
silt  below  the  bed  of  the  upper  San  Juan  River,  of 
which  the  larger  part  will  be  more  than  16  feet  below 
the  natural  level  of  the  bed  of  that  great  river,  which 
carries  in  flood  100,000  cubic  feet  of  water  per  second, 
half  given  by  the  lake  itself  and  the  other  half  by 
lateral  tributaries.  Outside  of  the  channels  opened 
below  the  water,  67.33  rniles  will  be  dug  through  open 
ground,  the  harbor  approaches  forming  the  balance  of 
the  total  length. 

The  66  miles  of  deep-water  navigation  are  formed 
by  48.74  miles  in  Lake  Nicaragua,  and  17.26  miles  in 
the  San  Juan,  immediately  above  the  dam. 

Let  us  now  examine  the  situation  in  the  Panama 
Isthmus  as  it  will  result  by  the  project  adopted  by 
the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission. 

In  Panama  we  find  but  38  miles  of  canal  navigation, 
to  which  must  be  added  7  miles  deep-water  navigation 
through  the  artificial  lake  formed  above  Bohio,  by  the 
dam  projected  there  across  the  Chagres  at  a  distance 
of  15  miles  from  the  Atlantic  Ocean. 

9 


In  fact,  the  canal  navigation  in  Panama  will  be  less 
than  one  third  that  of  the  Nicaragua  route.  I  need 
not  say  how  much  reality  differs  from  the  external 
and  apparent  aspects  of  the  two  routes  in  regard  to 
lengths  of  canal  navigation. 

Depths  of  Great  Cuts. — The  continental  divide 
is  in  Panama,  330  feet  above  the  level  of  the  oceans, 
and  274  feet  above  the  bottom  of  the  cut  projected  by 
the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission  ;  those  measurements 
applying  to  the  natural  and  original  state  of  the 
ground.     This  is  the  so-called  Culebra  cut. 

The  work  executed  by  the  old  and  the  new  Panama 
Company  leaves  to-day  1 10  feet  excavation  to  be  made 
above  said  bottom.  It  is  the  deepest  cut  that  remains 
to  be  excavated  on  the  line  of  the  Panama  Canal. 
One  sees  to  what  to-day  is  reduced  this  terrible  diffi- 
culty of  the  Culebra,  which  was  really  the  greatest  that 
the  construction  of  the  Panama  Canal  has  met,  and 
which  during  the  first  six  years  of  the  construction 
remained  as  an  unsolvable  problem. 

I  have  related,  in  1892,  by  what  method  I  had  been 
able  to  meet  that  immense  difficulty  and  to  take  it  out 
of  the  way  of  the  construction  of  the  Panama  Canal. 
It  is  to  that  task  that  I  mostly  consecrated  the 
last  two  years  of  my  presence  on  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama. 

Let  us  now  see  what  aspect  the  question  of  deep 
cuts  on  the  Nicaragua  Isthmus  presents. 

On  the  Nicaragua  route,  we  find  that  the  continen- 
tal divide  is  not  the  place  where  the  deepest  cut  is 
necessary. 

As  already  stated,  the  cut  at  the  continental  divide 
is  insignificant  (44  feet  above  the  lake),  but  a  high 
cut  of  297  feet  above  bottom  and  others  of  218  and 


170  are  to  be  met  in  the  low  valley  of  the  San  Juan 
to  go  through  high  ridges  projecting  in  said  valley. 

These  facts  show  that  most  unexpectedly  the  Nic- 
aragua location  is,  from  the  point  of  view  of  depth  of 
cuts,  by  far  the  worse  of  the  two  routes,  and  that  the 
ratio  of  I  to  3  in  favor  of  Panama  is  to  be  found 
equally  for  length  of  canal  navigation  and  depth  of 
cuts. 

Dams. — I  will  not  weary  you  about  details  of 
technical  descriptions  as  to  the  relative  importance  of 
the  two  dams  to  be  built,  either  in  Nicaragua  or  in 
Panama.  Let  me  only  say  that  the  Isthmian  Canal 
Commission  stated  that  the  dam  to  be  built  in  Panama 
can  be  built  of  earth  as  well  as  of  masonry,  which  indi- 
cates that  neither  its  difficulty  nor  its  cost  is  extra- 
ordinary, and  that  the  same  Commission,  speaking  of 
the  Boca  San  Carlos  dam,  on  the  Nicaragua  route,  said 
that  "  the  most  difficult  engineering  work  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Nicaragua  Canal  project  is  the  construc- 
tion of  a  dam  across  the  San  Juan  River  to  holdback 
the  waters  of  the  lake,  and  enable  its  level  to  be 
regulated." 

This  dam  would  necessitate  compressed  air  founda- 
tions to  a  depth  of  100  feet  below  low-water  level  of 
the  river,  and  have  a  total  height  of  1 50  feet  from  the 
crest  to  the  foundation. 

The  Commission  estimates  that  eight  years  would 
be  necessary  for  its  construction. 

Chagres  Regulation, — Let  me  add  that  the  dam 
to  be  constructed  at  Bohio  (Panama)  does  away  en- 
tirely with  this  monster  of  imagination  called  the 
Chagres.  What  has  been  said  of  the  Chagres,  and 
the  difficulty  its  regulation  presents,  has  been  im- 
mensely exaggerated.    The  Commission  has  proposed 


to  build  a  dam  in  order  to  form  a  lake  whose  normal 
level  would  be  at  85  feet  above  the  sea.  The  out- 
let of  that  lake  will  be  2000  feet  wide,  and  the 
surface  of  the  lake  combined  with  the  dimensions 
of  the  outlet  are  such  that  the  largest  floods  ever 
known  will  be  incapable  of  raising  the  surface  of  the 
lake  more  than  a  little  over  5  feet.  I  do  not  wish 
to  enter  into  tiresome  technical  details,  but  I  trust 
you  will  accept  the  statement  about  the  easy  regula- 
tion of  the  Chagres,  because  it  is  a  conclusion  arrived 
at  by  the  eminent  American  Commission  itself. 

We  have  seen  when  speaking  of  deep  cuts  to  what 
the  Culebra  difficulty,  which  was  a  great  and  real 
one,  is  to-day  reduced  ;  we  have  also  seen  to  what 
the  Chagres  difficulty,  which  was  never  a  real  one, 
has  been  reduced. 

Culebra  and  Chagres  are  the  two  names  that  sym- 
bolize in  public  sentiment  the  impossibilities  of  a  pas- 
sage through  the  Panama  Isthmus.  Both  of  them  must 
be  totally  erased  and  disappear  from  the  public  mind. 

Locks. — In  reference  to  the  locks  which  will  be 
constructed,  it  will  be  sufficient  for  me  to  state  that 
nine  locks  will  be  necessary  in  Nicaragua  and  only 
five  in  Panama,  and  that  the  level  to  which  the  ships 
will  have  to  be  lifted  will  be,  in  the  case  of  the  Nica- 
ragua route,  no  feet  at  maximum,  and,  under  equal 
conditions  at  Panama,  90  feet. 

The  foundation  of  all  locks  in  Panama  will  be  on 
rock,  and  only  five  in  Nicaragua  will  enjoy  such  ad- 
vantages ;  the  other  four,  says  the  Commission,  "  are 
located  on  foundations  that  are  believed  to  be  safe." 

Nicaragua  Gales. — The  winds  in  the  Nicaragua 
Canal  location  are  exceptionally  violent  and  per- 
manent. 

12 


This  is  the  result  of  the  geographical  situation  of  the 
San  Juan  valley,  open  to  the  trade  winds  and  parallel 
to  their  general  direction.  The  lateral  higfh  moun- 
tains  of  Nicaragua  and  Costa  Rica  form  a  barrier  to 
the  continuous  trade  winds,  which  is  only  open 
through  the  San  Juan  depression.  Those  continu- 
ous and  violent  gales,  much  heavier  than  trade  winds 
at  sea,  will  be  a  great  obstacle,  and  a  great  danger 
for  navigators.  In  Panama  nothing  of  the  sort  is  to 
be  feared,  as  the  Canal  is  in  a  direction  from  north- 
west to  southeast,  perpendicular  to  the  trade  winds. 
Lateral  mountains  shelter  absolutely  the  Canal  from 
any  access  of  trade  winds. 

Currents. — Concerning  river  currents,  it  will  be 
easily  understood  that,  the  San  Juan  River  having  a 
much  larger  watershed  than  the  Chagres,  and  the 
Nicaragua  Isthmus  being  much  more  rainy  (from  2 
to  2^  times  more  than  the  Isthmus  of  Panama),  the 
quantity  of  water,  though  its  flow  is  regulated  by 
the  Nicaragua  Lake,  will  be  much  greater,  and  gen- 
erate much  more  permanent  and  intense  currents 
than  will  be  the  case  in  Panama,  where  the  great 
floods  of  the  river  are  of  very  short  duration,  and  do 
not  occur  at  more  frequent  intervals  than  three  years 
or  more. 

To  illustrate  this  state  of  things,  the  appendices  to 
the  Nicaragua  Canal  Commission's  report  and  the 
official  documents  of  the  Panama  Canal  Company 
give  most  interesting  figures.  From  measurements 
taken  during  ten  consecutive  years  (1889  to  1898), 
at  Gamboa,  at  the  beginning  of  the  five  miles  where 
the  Chagres  and  the  Canal  will  be  in  the  same  loca- 
tion, the  averagfe  discharge  of  the  Chag^res  has  been 
3400  cubic  feet  a  second,  and  the  average  discharge 


during  the  last  six  months  of  every  year  has  been 
4800  cubic  feet  a  second. 

Measurements  taken  in  1898  in  the  San  Juan  River 
show  that  the  average  mean  discharge  above  the 
mouth  of  the  San  Carlos  has  been  25,000  cubic  feet 
a  second  for  the  whole  year,  and  31,400  for  the  last 
six  months. 

This  shows  the  relative  importance  of  the  two 
rivers.  And  at  the  same  time  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  rainfall  at  the  Atlantic  terminus  of  the 
Nicaragua  Canal  at  Greytown  in  1898  was  only  201.64 
inches,  while  the  other  figrures  oriven  in  the  Nicarao;-ua 
Commission's  report  are  296.64  inches  for  1890, — 
214.27  inches  for  1891, — 291.20  inches  for  1892,  these 
being  the  only  years  when  the  rainfall  was  reported 
for  Greytown.  It  shows  that  the  figures  above  given 
for  river  discharges  in  NicaraQ^ua  are  more  like  a 
minimum  than  anything  else  and  that  probably  half 
more  may  be  often  expected. 

In  the  same  comparatively  dry  year  of  1898,  the 
average  of  the  maximum  discharge  of  the  San  Juan 
measured  in  every  one  of  the  last  six  months  of  the  year 
was  45,500  cubic  feet  a  second,  the  highest  maximum 
discharge  for  that  period  being  70,500  cubic  feet  a 
second,  in  November.  (Measurements  above  mouth 
of  San  Carlos.) 

In  the  Chagres  in  the  last  twenty-one  years  five  great 
exceptional  floods  have  taken  place,  which  lasted  only 
a  few  hours  and  gave  at  Gamboa  a  discharge  of  72,- 
000  cubic  feet  a  second  in  1879, — 58,000  cubic  feet  a 
second  in  1885, — 58,000  cubic  feet  a  second  in  1888, 
— 58,000  cubic  feet  a  second  in  1890,  and  42,000 
in  1893. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  great  floods  of   the  Chagres, 

14 


which  may  be  considered  as  an  exceptional  incident, 
lasting  for  two  or  three  days,  and  occurring  at  very 
rare  intervals,  give  about  the  same  amount  of  water 
if  not  less  as  the  average  monthly  winter  great  flows 
in  the  San  Juan  above  the  mouth  of  the  San  Carlos 
River. 

Maintenance  of  the  Canal  Channel  in  the  Bed 
OF  THE  San  Juan  River. — What  will  be  the  effect  of 
each  flow  on  the  maintenance  of  the  canal  channel 
dug  into  the  bed  of  the  San  Juan  is  extremely  difficult 
to  calculate. 

There  is  not  a  part  of  the  technical  science  where 
man  feels  more  the  weakness  of  human  knowledge 
than  in  such  a  question. 

The  form  of  the  bed  of  a  big  river  is  the  resultant 
of  the  very  complicated  mechanism  of  different  factors 
associated  together,  namely,  the  amount  of  water 
discharged,  the  variation  to  which  the  discharge  is 
submitted,  the  quantity  of  gravel,  sand,  or  silt  carried 
by  the  floods,  the  relative  densities  of  those  materials, 
the  obstacles  met  by  the  river,  the  declivity  of  the 
country  on  which  it  flows,  etc. 

It  is  impossible  to  calculate  the  part  every  one  of 
those  factors  has  in  the  definitive  determination  of  the 
form  of  the  bed,  but  it  may  be  stated  that  when  the 
industry  of  man  makes  it  necessary  to  change  with 
brutality  the  natural  form  of  the  bed,  and  to  trans- 
form it  into  a  new  channel,  this  channel,  if  in  harmony 
with  our  needs,  is  in  absolute  contradiction  with  the 
natural  needs  of  the  river,  and  one  may  expect  to 
sustain  with  nature  one  of  the  most  dangerous  strug- 
gles, one  of  those  where  man  has  been  often  totally 
defeated. 

A  striking  example  of  the  variety  of  forms  that  a 

15 


river  bed  can  take  is  precisely  offered  by  the  San 
Juan  above  and  below  its  junction  with  the  San 
Carlos. 

From  the  Machuca  Rapids  to  the  mouth  of  the 
San  Carlos,  a  distance  of  about  fifteen  miles,  the  San 
Juan  has  a  very  deep  bed,  40  and  even  44  feet  in 
some  places  at  low  water,  and  very  little  fall,  about 
one  foot  for  the  whole  distance. 

Below  the  mouth  of  the  San  Juan  to  Ochoathebed 
is  about  12  feet  deep  at  low  water,  and  the  fall  6  feet 
for  3  miles. 

The  river  is  in  that  latter  part  twice  wider  (in 
rough  figures)  than  above  the  San  Carlos  mouth. 

Of  course  the  inclination  of  the  water  surface, 
associated  with  its  reduced  depth,  generates  a  sensible 
current,  even  in  very  low  water,  below  the  mouth  of 
the  San  Carlos,  while,  on  the  contrary,  the  water  runs 
very  sluggishly  in  the  deep  bed  above. 

On  account  of  this  sluggishness  in  that  part  of  the 
river,  it  was  termed  "  Agua  muerta"  (Dead  water). 

The  first  impression  given  by  the  existence  of  such 
a  deep  channel  where  water  is  very  slow  conveys  the 
idea  that  the  river  has  been  unable  to  fill  up  the  bed 
with  sand  or  silt  as  it  did  below  the  mouth  of  the  San 
Carlos,  and  that  therefore  the  waters  of  the  San  Juan 
River  are  exceptionally  clear.  But  a  closer  examina- 
tion dismisses  this  impression. 

It  would  be  necessary  to  imagine  that  the  San  Juan 
waters  above  the  San  Carlos  are  as  pure  as  distilled 
water,  to  think  that  in  the  course  of  centuries  their 
sediments  could  not  fill  the  bottom  of  that  channel. 

The  cause  must  evidently  be  referred  not  to  the 
scarcity  of  sediments  but  to  the  impossibility  for  the 
stream  to  gain  room  in  width  on  account  of  lateral 

16 


obstacles.  Probably  no  other  way  was  left  to  the 
river,  to  convey  the  mass  of  water  that  has  to  pass 
periodically  in  floods,  but  to  dig  into  its  proper  bed 
a  deep  channel  for  itself. 

As  soon  as  the  flood  is  over  and  the  temporary  fall 
created  by  the  very  flood  has  disappeared,  the  river 
takes  a  sleepy  aspect  which  does  not  throw  any  light 
on  the  quantity  of  sediment  that  has  passed  during 
the  flood,  and  that  will  stay  in  the  bed  if  the  nat- 
ural conditions  are  altered  by  the  intervention  of 
man,  if,  namely,  the  section  through  which  water  has 
to  flow  is  brought  from  6000  or  7000  square  feet  to 
40,000  or  50,000,  as  will  be  the  consequence  of  the 
construction  of  a  dam  raising  the  natural  level  of 
Water  about  50  feet. 

Returning  to  the  most  important  question  of  sedi- 
ments, and  after  having  shown  that  the  "  Agua 
muerta"  does  not  prove  anything  about  their  scarcity 
or  their  abundance  during  the  floods,  let  us  see  what 
tributaries  fall  into  the  San  Juan  above  the  "Agua 
muerta." 

We  see  about  thirty  miles  above  the  San  Carlos 
mouth  a  great  tributary  called  the  Poco  Sol. 

This  tributary  is  set  forth  in  the  Nicaragua  Canal 
Commission's  report  as  follows  :  "  The  principal  trib- 
utaries from  the  Costa  Rican  side  are  the  Rio  Frio, 
Poco  Sol,  San  Carlos,  and  Sarapiqui.  These  large 
streams  exert  a  controlling  influence  in  confining  the 
location  of  the  canal  to  the  left  bank." 

In  the  geological  report  we  find  this  river  alluded 
to  as  follows  :  "  The  San  Juan  River  receives  only 
small  tributaries  from  the  north,  while  it  receives 
both  small  and  large  from  the  south.  The  large 
tributaries   include  the   Frio,   Poco  Sol,    San    Carlos, 

17 


and  Sarapiqui.  These  all  head  upon  the  slopes  of  the 
Costa  Rican  volcanic  range  which  forms  the  southern 
margin  of  the  Nicaraguan  depression." 

To  judge  the  influence  of  the  entrance  of  such  a 
stream  in  the  middle  of  the  section  of  the  San  Juan 
which  will  be  consecrated  to  canal  navigation,  it  would 
be  very  desirable  to  have  exact  measurements  of  the 
volume  of  its  discharge  and  of  the  quantity  of  sedi- 
ments brought. 

Unfortunately  no  measurements  of  that  large 
stream  were  reported  by  the  Nicaragua  Canal  Com- 
mission, as  has  been  done  for  the  three  other  great 
and  torrential  tributaries,  falling  from  the  slopes  of 
the  volcanic  range  of  Costa  Rica,  namely,  the  Frio  at 
the  west  of  the  Poco  Sol  and  the  San  Carlos  and 
Sarapiqui  at  its  east,  all  three  bringing  enormous 
masses  of  water  in  floods  and  enormous  masses  of 
sediment. 

In  the  absence  of  precise  data  some  very  probable 
notion  may  be  formed  of  the  relative  importance  of 
the  Poco  Sol. 

The  San  Carlos  has  a  drainage  area  of  1450  square 
miles.  The  Sarapiqui  has  a  drainage  area  of  1 100 
square  miles.  The  drainage  area  of  the  Poco  Sol 
has  not  been  given,  but  the  drainage  area  of  the  tribu- 
taries of  the  San  Juan  from  the  Savalos  River  to  a 
point  near  and  above  the  San  Carlos  is  750  square 
miles.  The  only  important  tributary  in  that  section 
of  the  river  is  the  Poco  Sol,  and  its  watershed  may 
be  estimated  with  that  of  the  Poco  Solito  as  at  least 
between  half  and  two  thirds  of  the  total  surface. 

One  may  say  for  the  sake  of  comparison  that  the 
drainage  area  of  the  Poco  Sol  is  between  one  quarter 
and  one  third  of  that  of  the  San  Carlos,  that  it  comes 

18 


from  the  very  same  volcanic  region  as  the  San  Carlos 
and  flows  on  the  very  same  ground.  The  natural 
consequence  ought  to  be  that  it  brings  a  proportional 
quantity  of  water  and  sediment.  We  have  a  state- 
ment which  confirms  that  view  in  what  regards  water 
discharge. 

The  total  discharge  of  the  tributaries  into  the  San 
Juan  between  Savalos  River  and  San  Carlos  River 
was  calculated  to  have  been  in  1898  about  4,500,000 
acre  feet,  to  which,  according  to  the  above  estimate, 
between  2,290,000  and  3,000,000  ought  to  have  come 
from  the  Poco  Sol  River.  The  similar  figure  calcu- 
lated for  the  San  Carlos  proper  is  7,661,000,  of  which 
the  third  part  would  be  about  2,500,000,  an  amount 
which  approximately  confirms  the  above  estimate. 

We  fail  to  see  any  material  fact  that  could  lead 
one  to  think  that  a  similar  proportion  should  not  be 
the  very  same  one  between  the  quantities  of  sediment 
brought  into  the  San  Juan  River  by  the  Poco  Sol 
and  by  the  San  Carlos. 

Only  the  fact  that  the  river  bed  is,  for  a  distance  of 
fifteen  miles  above  the  San  Carlos,  deep  and  that  the 
San  Juan  River  there  is  sleeping  at  low  water  could 
lead  to  a  different  conception,  but  we  have  shown  that 
it  does  not  prove  anything  about  the  amount  of  sedi- 
ment of  the  upper  river,  and  results  simply  from  the 
different  factors  that  determine  the  form  of  the  bed 
and  which  do  not  allow  any  sediments  to  stay  there, 
but  force  them  farther  down  the  stream. 

If  such  a  proportion  as  three  or  four  to  one  was 
proved  to  be  the  real  one  between  the  amount  of  sedi- 
ment brought  by  the  San  Carlos  River  and  that 
brought  by  the  Poco  Sol  River  into  the  San  Juan 
River,  or  even  a  much  lower  one,  as  the  amount  of 

19 


sediment  brought  by  the  San  Carlos  River  was  consid- 
ered as  equivalent  to  a  formal  impossibility  of  maintain- 
ing any  channel  in  the  San  Juan  below  the  San  Carlos, 
the  maintenance  of  the  depth  and  width  of  the  canal 
channel  in  the  same  river  between  the  Poco  Sol  and 
the  San  Carlos,  which  was  estimated  by  the  Isthmian 
Canal  Commission  as  being  within  the  limits  of  prac- 
ticability, could  not  fail  to  be  an  extremely  difficult 
one. 

Most  likely  the  exact  determination  of  the  water- 
shed of  the  Poco  Sol,  from  precise  surveys  in  the  vol- 
canic region  from  whence  it  comes,  as  well  as  its  mean 
and  flood  discharge,  and  the  appreciation  of  the 
amount  of  its  sediment  in  flood,  as  much  as  can  be 
done  by  experimental  tests,  will  be  found  in  the 
definitive  report  of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission, 
and  will  settle  this  very  important  point. 

We  shall  finish  the  study  of  this  chapter  by  saying 
that  even  leaving  aside  the  amount  of  sediment 
carried  by  the  river  or  thrown  into  it  by  its  tributaries, 
the  maintenance  of  a  channel  of  the  required  width 
and  depth  is  by  itself  a  very  difficult  problem  in  such 
a  powerful  stream  as  the  San  Juan. 

Nature  does  not  like  a  regular  depth  and  width  in 
the  bed  of  a  great  river  ;  it  is  contrary  to  its  laws.  In 
curves  the  river  fills  up  the  concave  side  of  its  bed  and 
digs  the  convex  side,  and  when  it  changes  its  curva- 
ture from  one  side  to  the  other,  the  river  expands  and 
fills  up  its  channel  to  get  an  intermediary  state  for 
passing  from  the  deep  channel  on  one  side  to  the  deep 
channel  on  the  other  side. 

This  any  great  river  will  do  constantly  with  the 
proper  elements  of  its  bed  without  borrowing  any 
foreign  material,  and  the  problem,  even  without  any 


intervention  of  sediments  from  lateral  tributaries,  is  a 
difficult  one  to  solve.  The  difficulty  can,  of  course, 
easily  go  over  the  boundaries  of  human  practicability 
when  the  question  becomes  complicated  with  that  of 
great  masses  of  sediment  brought  into  the  bed. 

Curves. — To  examine  this  very  important  subject 
of  curvature,  the  most  essential  of  all  for  safe  navig^a- 
tion,  we  have  not  yet  the  definitive  plan  of  the  Isthmian 
Canal  Commission,  for  the  Nicaragua  Canal,  but  as 
this  Commission  has  adopted  in  its  essential  lines  the 
Nicaragua  Canal  Commission's  project,  and  as  curva- 
ture is  commanded  nearly  absolutely  by  the  natural 
disposition  of  the  ground,  one  may  take,  as  a  fair 
approximation,  the  curvature  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal 
Commission's  route  as  the  one  that  will  be  more  or 
less  presented  by  the  definitive  project.  Leaving 
aside  the  curves  in  harbors,  or  at  the  entrance  of  the 
locks,  where  the  ships  have  a  very  reduced  velocity, 
we  find  that  the  Panama  route  has  23  curves  of  a 
totalized  length  of  19.5  miles,  and  that  the  Nicaragua 
route  has  82  curves  of  a  totalized  length  of  53.5  miles. 

It  is  not  enough  to  state  the  number  of  curves  ;  it  is 
much  more  important  to  state  their  radii.  All  the 
curves  of  the  Panama  canal  are  of  10,000  feet  radius 
or  more,  with  the  exception  of  three,  which  have 
8200  feet  radius.  There  are,  on  the  contrary,  69 
curves  in  the  Nicaragua  Canal  below  8000  feet,  of 
which  50  are  between  3000  and  4000  feet  radius. 

But  it  is  not  only  the  number  of  curves  and  their 
radii  which  has  to  be  considered,  but  also  whether 
they  are  located  in  places  where  water  will  be  still  or 
not. 

In  Panama  there  are  only  three  curves  of  10,000 
feet  radius  where  the  Canal  and  the  Chagres  will  be  in 


the  same  location,  that  is  to  say,  where  eventually 
currents  may  take  place.  In  Nicaragua  we  find  58 
curves,  having  a  total  extension  of  37  miles,  where 
the  Canal  will  be  located  in  the  San  Juan  River  itself, 
and  of  those  58  curves,  43  are  between  3000  and 
4000  feet  radius,  and  have  a  total  extension  of  26 
miles. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  that  in  that  part  of  the 
Canal  there  will  be  nearly  28  miles  excavated  into 
the  bottom  of  the  river  to  a  depth  of  16  feet  for 
the  larger  part.  The  maintenance  of  that  channel 
opened  into  silt  and  sand  seems  (from  my  personal 
point  of  view)  to  be  extremely  difficult,  and  will  neces- 
sitate constant  dredging  in  a  river  carrying  in  floods 
100,000  cubic  feet  of  water,  that  is  to  say,  one  quar- 
ter of  the  amount  in  the  Niaorara  Falls. 

It  is  obvious  that  ships  will  meet  there  an  accumu- 
lation of  extreme  difficulties,  sharp  curves,  heavy  river 
currents,  constant  heavy  gales  and  impediments  either 
from  the  dredges  themselves,  or  from  the  sand  and 
silt  they  will  have  to  remove. 

Who  could  guarantee  that  those  combined  diffi- 
culties when  brought  to  the  extremes  simultaneously 
would  not  stop  sometimes,  even  if  not  often,  all 
transit  ? 

In  Panama,  the  large  and  easy  curves,  the  absence 
of  winds,  the  scarcity  of  river  currents,  and  the  rarity 
of  floods,  give  quite  a  reverse  impression  as  to  the 
eventual  facilities  offered  to  ships. 

Harbors. — With  regard  to  harbors,  the  advantage, 
as  every  one  admits,  is  with  Panama,  both  of  whose 
terminals  have  excellent  harbors.  The  Nicaragua 
Atlantic  terminal  is  very  bad.  The  immense  quantity 
of  sand  thrown  into  the  sea  by  the  San  Juan,  whose 


mouth  lies  south  of  Greytown,  is  maintained  in  sus- 
pension by  the  continuous  agitation  due  to  the  con- 
stant easterly  trade  winds,  and  brought  into  Greytown 
by  a  continuous  northern  stream  of  sand.  The  Grey- 
town harbor,  which,  fifty  years  ago,  was  a  good  one, 
is  now  virtually  closed  by  the  constant  accretion  of 
the  sand,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  entrance  to  the 
Canal  there  would  be  very  difficult. 

If  it  is  understood  by  the  designation  of  harbors, 
those  points  of  the  route  where  canal  navigation  is 
changed  for  a  navigation  into  an  immense  body  of 
water  beaten  by  storms,  and  liable  to  give  great 
waves,  one  is  entitled  to  say  that  the  Nicaragua  route, 
outside  of  its  ocean  harbors,  has  two  others  in  the 
Lake  of   Nicaragua, 

This  lake  is  a  real  sea,  about  as  large  as  the  sea  of 
Marmara. 

The  violent  gales  that  continually  blow  over  it, 
with  sudden  changes  of  direction  due  to  the  reflection 
of  the  currents  of  air  on  the  mountains,  make  this 
interior  sea  always  agitated.  Its  violent  storms  are 
quite  characteristic  and  well  known. 

An  inferior  current  brings  to  the  southeastern  side 
all  the  light  sediment  thrown  into  the  lake  by  its 
tributaries,  and  this  sediment  accumulates  in  the 
region  where  the  outlet  of  the  lake,  the  San  Juan,  is 
located. 

An  artificial  channel  twenty-two  miles  long  has  to 
be  dug  in  that  mass  of  mud,  and  this  channel  forms, 
so  to  say,  the  harbor  approach  on  the  east  side  of  the 
interior  sea.  Close  to  the  point  where  this  channel 
leaves  the  shore,  a  great  torrential  tributary  of  the 
lake,  carrying  a  considerable  mass  of  sediment, 
brought  from  the  volcanic  ridgfe  of  Costa  Rica,  falls 

23 


into  the  lake  :  it  is  the  Rio  Frio,  which  will  not  add 
to  the  facility  of  maintaining  the  channel  depth. 

To  judge  at  the  same  time  the  extraordinary  diffi- 
culty of  that  maintenance  and  the  danger  to  which 
transitting  ships  will  be  exposed  in  that  harbor  ap- 
proach, one  must  forget  the  name  of  lake,  which  con- 
veys the  erroneous  idea  of  still,  sleeping  water,  and 
think  what  an  unprecedented  enterprise  it  would  be 
to  make  an  harbor  approach  in  the  ocean  consist- 
ing of  an  artificial  channel,  twenty-two  miles  long, 
opened  into  mud  or  silt,  and  constantly  exposed  to 
be  brutally  filled  up  by  the  sweeping  waves  at  every 
storm. 

Such  a  point  of  view  would  be  in  the  actual  case 
much  nearer  to  reality,  than  the  conception  of  a 
channel  opened  into  the  bottom  of  a  Swiss  lake. 

Building  Expenses  and  Time  of  Transit. — The 
exceptional  advantages  which  characterize  the  Panama 
route  compared  to  the  Nicaragua  route  are  in  no 
way  counterbalanced  by  larger  building  expenses. 
According  to  the  estimates  of  the  Isthmian  Canal 
Commission,  the  completion  of  the  Panama  Canal 
will  cost  58,000,000  dollars  less  than  the  construction 
of  the  Nicaragua  route,  which  is  estimated  at  200,- 
000,000  dollars.  It  is  obvious  that  the  estimation  of 
the  cost  of  completing  such  a  work,  where  already  ^'],- 
000,000  cubic  yards  have  been  excavated,  in  all  parts 
of  the  Isthmus  and  in  all  conditions  of  work,  enjoys 
a  far  higher  degree  of  certainty  than  an  estimate 
made  on  a  line  where  no  works  have  been  executed  *  ; 

*  The  Isthmian  Canal  Commission  states  that  the  only  excavation  executed 
on  the  Nicaragua  Isthmus  consists  of  a  channel  between  150  and  230  feet 
wide,  16  feet  deep  and  three  quarters  of  a  mile  long.  This  insignificant  work 
made  in  the  Greytown  swamps  represents  a  cube  inferior  to  one  three  hun- 
dredth part  of  the  total  volume  of  the  prism  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal. 


on  the  other  hand  it  is  a  matter  of  common  experience 
that  whatever  be  the  care  with  which  surveys,  sound- 
ings, and  plans  are  made,  the  unforeseen  circumstances 
which  are  met  in  a  new  ground  do  not  modify  the 
previsions  towards  reduction  of  expenses  but  towards 
increase. 

The  time  of  transit  is  estimated  by  the  Isthmian 
Canal  Commission,  at  twelve  hours  for  Panama  and 
thirty-three  for  Nicaragua.  If  one  remembers  the 
length  of  the  two  routes,  and  the  number  of  locks,  it  is 
evident  that  this  calculation  must  have  been  based 
upon  the  hypothesis  that  ships  will  go  at  the  same 
speed  in  both  cases,  and  that  no  allowance  was  made 
for  the  difficulties  to  be  met  on  the  Nicaragua  route. 

This  shows  that  the  advantage  of  distance  over 
Nicaragua,  between  both  sides  of  North  America,  is 
practically  erased  by  time  of  transit. 

PART    II 

Stability. — I  propose  now  to  touch  upon  another 
point  which  does  not  concern  the  construction  proper 
of  the  Canal,  but  has  reference  to  future  contingen- 
cies, and  which  was  not  discussed  by  the  United 
States  Isthmian  Canal  Commission  in  its  preliminary 
report. 

I  wish  to  speak  of  a  danger  arising  from  seismic 
disturbances,  both  during  construction  and  after. 

In  Panama,  there  is  within  a  distance  of  one  hun- 
dred and  eighty  miles  from  the  Canal  no  volcano, 
even  extinct.  The  Isthmus  there,  since  its  formation 
in  the  early  quarternary  period,  before  man  appeared 
on  the  earth,  has  not  been  modified. 

This  is  quite  the  contrary  in  Nicaragua,  which  has 
been  always  the  site  of  seismic  convulsions,  whose 

25 


lake  was  formerly  a  gulf  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and 
whose  name  was  associated  with  the  most  terrible 
volcanic  explosion  ever  recorded  in  history  before 
the  Krakatoa  explosion  in  Sound's  Islands. 

The  explosion  of  the  volcano  Coseguina  in  1835 
lasted  44  hours,  the  noise  was  heard  at  a  distance  of 
1000  miles,  the  ashes  were  brought  1400  sea  miles 
by  the  winds,  the  mass  ejected  into  the  air  was 
calculated  to  have  covered  a  surface  equivalent  to 
eight  times  the  surface  of  France,  and  the  volume 
was  calculated  to  be  equal  to  50  cubes  having  sides 
of  1 100  yards,  which  allows  me  to  say  that  during 
these  44  hours  the  volcano  ejected  every  six  7iiinutes 
a  volume  of  stone  and  ashes  eqiml  to  the  total  volume 
of  the  prism  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal,  as  it  was  calcu- 
lated by  the  Nicaragua  Canal  Commission,  and  which 
will  necessitate  eight  years  of  excavation. 

In  the  very  centre  of  Lake  Nicaragua  is  a  volcano 
in  constant  activity,  the  Omotepe,  whose  last  great 
eruption  occurred  in   1883. 

Between  the  two  above  named  volcanoes  we  find 
a  series  of  volcanoes  in  recent  or  continuous  activity, 
the  Hell  of  Masaya,  on  the  shore  of  Lake  Nicaragua, 
the  celebrated  Momotombo,  on  the  shore  of  Lake 
Managua,  the  volcano  of  the  Pilas,  which  was  born  in 
1850,  the  Santa  Clara,  the  Zelica,  the  Nindiri,  being 
the  best  known  of  them. 

The  continuity  of  volcanic  disturbances  is  stated 
in  an  appendix  to  the  Nicaragua  Canal  Commission's 
report :  "In  the  northwestern  part  of  Nicaragua 
slight  earthquakes  are  frequent.  Scarcely  a  mouth 
passes  without  one  or  more  being  noticed.  The  centre 
of  these  disturbances  is  always  near  the  line  of  the 
Nicaragua  volcanoes  ;  the  line  of  volcanoes  begins  luith 

26 


Madeira  (near  the  Omotepe),  at  the  southern  end,  in 
Lake  Nicaragua,  and  terminates  at  Coseguina,  at  the 
northern  end,  near  the  gulf  of  Fonseca." 

Two  most  important  facts  have  been  recently  estab- 
lished by  Mr,  Bertrand,  foremost  geologist  and 
member  of  the  Institute  of  France. 

(i)  The  Lake  Nicaragua  is  one  of  the  three  lines 
of  least  resistance  in  Central  America,  which  are  a 
site  of  election  for  great  seismic  disturbances.  It  is 
the  line  of  depression  between  the  Costa  Rican  volca- 
noes and  the  Nicaraguan,  and  plays  the  same  part  as 
the  other  two  :  the  bay  of  Fonseca,  which  is  a  vol- 
canic lake  characterizing  the  depression  between  the 
Nicaraguan  and  Salvadorian  volcanoes,  and  the  Lake 
Pacayan,  characterizing  the  depression  between  the 
Salvadorian  and  Guatemalan  volcanoes.  These  two 
last  lines  of  least  resistance  have  been  the  site  of 
the  most  terrible  convulsions  owed  to  the  Cose- 
guina for  the  former,  and  to  the  Fuego  (Fire)  for  the 
latter. 

(2)  The  underground  fire  is  going  south,  and  in- 
creasing i7t  Nicaragua.  From  the  figures  given  by 
Mr.  Bertrand  I  calculated  that  before  the  nineteenth 
century,  out  of  all  the  great  explosions  or  earthquakes 
recorded,  45^  belonged  to  Guatemala,  35^  to  Salva- 
dor, and  20;^  to  Nicaragua,  whereas  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  only  30^  belonged  to  Guatemala,  45^  to  Sal- 
vador, and  25^  to  Nicaragua,  showing  an  evident  ten- 
dency to  a  displacement  of  the  activity  southward 
and  an  increase  in  Nicaragua. 

To  justify  these  figures  one  can  say  that  several 
volcanoes  became  extinct  in  Guatemala,  and  that 
none  was  extinct  in  Salvador  nor  in  Nicaragua,  but, 
on    the    contrary,   that  two  were  born  in  Salvador, 

27 


Izalco,  in  1770,  and  Ilopango,  in  1880,  and  one  was 
born  in  Nicaragua,  that  of  Las  Pilas,  in  1850. 

Danger  for  Construction. — The  continual  earth- 
quakes may  have  a  fatal  influence  on  the  definitive 
transformation  from  half-liquid  mud  into  hard  stone, 
of  the  concrete,  which  will  during  eight  years  be  con- 
tinually poured  in  the  great  Boca  San  Carlos  dam  ; 
these  violent  shocks,  interfering  every  month  or  more 
with  the  gradual  crystallization  of  the  elements  of 
concrete,  may  destroy  their  reciprocal  adherence,  and 
ruin  the  perfect  homogeneity  of  the  solid  mass  which 
is  imperatively  necessary  for  the  part  it  has  to  play. 

Danger  for  the  Canal  once  Built. — It  is  en- 
tirely false  to  compare  the  equilibrium  of  dams  and 
locks  with  that  of  a  high  tower  or  of  a  church.  A 
wall  or  tower  even  fissurated  can  stand  after  an  earth- 
quake. A  longitudinal  fissure  in  a  dam,  which  will 
not  alter  its  equilibrium  as  a  wall  without  pressure  of 
water,  would  mean  its  immediate  overthrow  when  the 
water  pressure  is  exerting  its  force  upon  the  surface 
of  the  inside  fissure. 

Outside  of  the  impending  and  terrible  danger  of 
seeing  ruined  the  dam  or  the  locks  by  a  great  seismic 
commotion,  one  must  not  forget  that  there  is  great 
probability  of  seeing  formed  in  the  sea  of  Nicaragua, 
which  is  100  miles  long  and  45  miles  wide,  one  of 
those  terrible  tidal  waves  which  were  so  destructive 
in  Lisbon  (earthquake  of  1752),  and  Krakatoa,  1883, 
the  latter  being  100  feet  high  and  the  former  40,  and 
which  caused  unlimited  disaster. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  these  terrible 
menaces  would  mean,  if  realized,  not  only  the  de- 
struction of  that  costly  Canal,  but  the  ruin  of  the 
immense   interests  of  both  sides  of  America,  which 


will  have  been  developed  by  the  great  waterway  and 
receive  a  death  blow  by  its  paralyzation. 

Transformation  of  the  Panama  Canal  into  a 
BosPHORUS. — Nothing  similar  can  be  feared  in  Pan- 
ama, as  no  trace  of  any  local  volcanic  activity  may  be 
found  on  that  Isthmus,  whose  rare  and  small  seismic 
vibrations  come  from  distant  centres. 

The  future,  on  the  contrary,  far  from  being  open 
for  destruction,  is  open  for  a  gradual  transformation 
from  a  lock  canal  into  a  level  canal,  into  a  Bospho- 
rus,  which  means  a  rapid  transit  in  five  hours  from 
ocean  to  ocean.  This  can  be  done  without  stopping 
or  troubling  the  navigation  even  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour,  by  following  the  solution  I  have  given  years 
ago  to  this  question,  which  is  extremely  simple,  and 
consists,  all  engineers  will  understand  me,  in  making 
the  two  gates  of  a  lock  of  the  same  height. 


CONCLUSION 

The  facts  that  I  have  related  demonstrate  the  fol- 
lowing statements  : 

I.  It  is  very  questionable  whether  the  continuous 
earthquakes  will  allow  the  construction,  on  the  Nica- 
ragua route,  with  all  its  indispensable  qualities,  of  a 
substantial  masonry  dam,  which  is  the  key  of  the 
whole  Canal. 

29 


II.  Admitting  a  dam  could  be  built,  the  Nicaragua 
route,  whatever  may  be  the  engineering  skill  displayed 
and  the  expenses  made,  will  never  acquire  the  two 
most  essential  qualities  necessary  to  an  interoceanic 
canal, — continuity  of  operatioji  and  security  of  transit. 

The  large  ocean  steamers  will  have  there  to  strug- 
gle, deprived  of  any  means  of  resistance,*  against  the 
combined  efforts  of  the  continuous  violent  eales,  of 
the  heavy  river  currents,  of  the  impediments  resulting, 
of  the  constant  modifications  of  the  depths  in  the 
channel,  and  of  the  presence  of  the  numerous  dredges 
that  will  have  to  keep  the  way  open,  and  this  when 
they  will  be  steering  with  great  difficulty  around  an 
extraordinary  number  of  curves,  the  short  radii  of 
which  ought  to  be,  in  themselves,  considered  as  in- 
compatible with  the  navigation  of  big  ocean  ships  in 
a  narrow  channel. 

The  ships  will  also  have  to  meet  two  bad,  exposed, 
and  dangerous  passages,  when  going  from  the  Atlantic 
into  the  Canal  and  from  the  Canal  into  the  Lake  of 
Nicaragua. 

One  is  allowed  to  say  that  continuity  of  transit  and 
safety  of  navigation  will  be  constantly  at  the  mercy  of 
conflicting  elements  and  beyond  the  control  and  prevision 
of  man. 

III.  If  the  experience  of  four  centuries  is  not  a  mere 
word,   if  the  undisputable   proofs,  written  in   letters 


*  It  is  a  fact  well  known  to  naval  men,  that  a  big  ship  floating  in  shallow 
water  is  partially  deprived  of  its  steering  faculty.  The  reaction  of  inferior  cur- 
rents on  the  rudder  disables  it  to  a  certain  extent,  and  its  action  is  uncertain 
and  irregular. 

The  accident  suffered  by  the  battleship  Massachusetts,  that  got  aground  go- 
ing out  of  Pensacola  on  the  2ist  March  when  this  pamphlet  was  in  course  of 
printing,  is  a  good  illustration  of  this  disability  of  steering  in  shallow  water. 


of  tire  on  the  surface  of  the  soil,*  of  the  continuous 
violent  and  increasing  volcanic  activity  in  Nicaragua, 
are  not  a  mere  clream,  the  route  over  that  Isthmus  is 
not  only  eventually  exposed  to,  but  certain,  sooner  or 
later,  to  be  the  prey  of,  that  uncontrollable  power  of 
nature  before  which  flight  is  the  only  resource. 

If  one  thinks  that  not  only  the  enormous  cost  of 
such  a  waterway  would  be  at  stake  but  also  the  very 
basis  of  the  prosperity,  the  wealth  of  the  millions  of 
people  who  will  settle  on  the  west  coast  of  North 
America,  as  soon  as  the  construction  of  the  Canal  will 
join  them  with  the  other  side  of  the  continent  and 
with  Europe,  one  hesitates  to  calculate  the  conse- 
quences that  would  result  from  one  of  those  seismic 
convulsions,  which  most  probably  will  be  still  more 
terrible  in  the  future  than  they  have  been  in  the  past 
on  that  part  of  the  Isthmus. 

To  prefer  definitively  the  Nicaragua  route  to  the 
Panama  route,  the  unstable  route  to  the  stable  one, 
would  mean  to  prefer  the  stability  of  a  pyramid  on 
its  point  to  the  stability  of  a  pyramid  on  its  base  when 
to  that  stability  is  attached  the  prosperity  and  welfare 
of  a  whole  continent. 

IV.  The  Panama  route,  having  no  winds,  no  cur- 
rents (except  on  rare  occasions),  no  sharp  curves,  no 
sediments,  no  bad  harbors,  no  volcanoes,  enjoys  to  the 
highest  degree  the  three  essential  qualities  totally  want- 
ing for  the  Nicaragua  solution, — continuity  of  opcra- 

*To  the  people  who  think  I  am  exaggerating  this  capital  point  I  will  say. 
Open  any  dictionary  of  geography,  any  encyclopedia,  and  read  the  article  titled 
"  Nicaragua."  I  will  say  also:  look  atthe  coat  of  arms  of  the  Republic  of  Nica- 
ragua, look  at  the  Nicaraguan  postage  stamps.  Young  nations  like  to  put  on 
their  coat  of  arms  what  best  symbolizes  their  moral  domain  or  characterizes  their 
soil.  What  have  the  Nicaraguans  chosen  to  characterize  their  country  on  their 
coat  of  arms,  on  their  postage  stamps  ?     Volcanoes  ! 

31 


Hon,  security  of  transit,  stability  of  structure.*  Outside 
of  that  it  is  three  times  shorter,  will  cost  much  less 
than  the  Nicaragua  route  and  is  easily  transformable 
into  a  Bosphorus,  the  only  form  that  will  definitely 
answer  to  the  world-wide  interests  to  be  served  by 
the  route,  and  allow  of  a  passage  from  ocean  to  ocean 
in  five  hours. 

*  The  superior  qualities  of  the  Panama  route,  from  the  point  of  view  of  safe 
and  continuous  operation,  are  such  that  it  can  be  fairly  asserted  that,  assuming 
the  two  canals  were  built  and  that  of  Nicaragua  freed  of  any  tolls,  ships  would, 
in  the  intermittent  periods  of  navigability  of  the  Nicaragua  Canal,  still  prefer  the 
Panama  route,  as  the  tolls  of  this  Canal  would  certainly  be  less  than  the  insur- 
ance fees  to  be  paid  to  pass  over  the  unsafe  route  of  Nicaragua. 


32 


NICARAGUA  OR   PANAMA.      P.    BUNAU-VARILLA. 


RESPECTIVE  LENGTHS  OF  CANAL  NAV- 
IGATION OVER  THE  NICARAGUA 
AND    PANAMA  ROUTES. 


NICARAGUA  ROUTE 


This  plate,  drawn  at  the  same  scale  of  one  inch  per 
twelve  miles,  gives  the  relative  lengths  of  canal  navi- 
gation in  both  routes,  according  to  the  figures  of  the 
Isthmian  Canal  Commission's  Report,  being  under- 
stood by  canal  navigation  all  the  parts  of  the  way 
where  ships  will  have  to  follow  an  artificial  channel, 
whether  dug  in  open  land  or  below  the  bed  of  a 
river  or  below  the  bottom  of  a  lake,  and  without 
taking  into  account  the  part  of  the  way  where  ships 
will  float  in  free  deep  water.  Canal  navigation  will 
be  120.53  miles  in  Nicaragua,  and  38  miles  in 
Panama,  to  which  must  be  added  66  miles  in  Nica- 
ragua, and  seven  miles  in  Panama,  for  deep-water 
navigation. 


PANAMA  ROUTE 

I 


NICARAGUA   OR    PANAMA,      P.    BUNAU-VARILLA. 


RESPECTIVE  DEPTHS  OF  GREAT  CUTS 
ON  THE  NICARAGUA  AND  PANAMA 
ROUTES. 

This  plate  gives,  drawn  at  the  same  scale  of  one 
inch  for  sixty  feet,  the  respective  depths  of  great 
cuts  that  are  to  be  dug  on  both  routes. 

On  the  Nicaragua  route,  according  to  the  figures 
of  the  Isthmian  Canal  Commission,  the  greatest  cut 
is  at  Tamborcito,  and  is  297  feet  deep. 

On  the  Panama  route  the  Culebra  ground,  origi- 
nally 274  feet  above  the  bottom  of  the  Culebra  cut, 
according  to  the  project  adopted  by  above  named 
Commission,  is  to-day  reduced  to  no  feet,  owing  to 
the  works  executed  by  the  old  and  the  new  Panama 
Company. 


NICARAGUA  ROUTE 


PANAMA  ROUTE 


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Tint  pUlc  jfives  ihc  suKWiiv 
by  innuiting  ship*  on  the  Nica 

urvea  in  hvbon  or  ai 

diannd  hu  U  be  opened  lot  a  loial  length  of  }j.gf>  mil 
bn)  (Tor  the  lugcr  part).     Ii  mu^i  U  bom.-  in  mimi  it 


dhatge  in\  fram  July 
nwmum  bring  45.500 


the  nine  locuicm.    Ouuide  ol 


b  only  4800  eubiefct  a  mond  from  July  lo  Dwcmbcr; 
ud  the  ptMi  euqitionit  floodi  (four  in  c«iniy«nc  yean) 

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N  I  CARA  GU A 


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R  OUTE 


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■l:.-^L>  ili 


PANAMA     ROUTE 


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NICARAGU/ 


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TH 

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member  \ 

number  oj 

violent  e^y-y^  /^  TH£ 
theninetK?^,7y/r 


A 


the  three 
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towards 
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curves,  w 
intensity 
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a: 


NICARAGUA   OR   PANAMA.      P.    BUNAU-VARILLA. 


RELATIVE  FREQUENCY  OF  GREAT 
SEISMIC  DISTURBANCES  IN  THE 
THREE  VOLCANIC  GROUPS  OF 
GUATEMALA,  SALVADOR,  AND 
NICARAGUA. 

From  the  statistics  produced  by  Mr.  Bertrand, 
member  of  the  Institute  of  France,  in  relation  to  the 
number  of  great  volcanic  explosions  or  e.xceptionally 
violent  earthquakes  recorded  before  the  beginning  of 
the  nineteenth  century  and  from  that  time  to  1885,  in 
the  three  powerful  volcanic  groups  of  Central  Amer- 
ica, Guatemala,  Salvador,  and  Nicaragua,  I  have  cal- 
culated that  before  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century  45  %  belonged  to  Guatemala,  35  %  to  Salvador, 
and  2ofo  to  Nicaragua ;  and  that  the  corresponding 
figures  for  same  groups  were  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury 30^  for  Guatemala,  45;^  for  Salvador,  and  25^ 
for  Nicaragua,  which  demonstrates  a  displacement 
towards  Nicaragua  of  the  maximum  of  seismic  ac- 
tivity, as  is  shown  by  comparing  the  two  dotted 
curves,  which  can  be  considered  as  representing  the 
intensity  of  volcanic  activity  along  the  line  of  vol- 
canoes from  North  Guatemala  to  South  Nicaragua. 


ftCLATIVE  SEISMIC  ACTIVITY  IN  THE  PERIQO 
ANTERIOR  TO    THE    /9"  CENTURY 


RELATIVE  SEJSMIC  ACTIVITY  IN  THE 
PERIOD  OETIVEEN  BECINNINC  OF  THE 
ISV  CENTUfJY    AND   /885 


■I^C  SOUTHERr,  qr,-. 


A     000  547  955 


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